Longbottom's Long Tale
by MushroomCap
Summary: Neville Longbottom, do you know him? Doesn't matter, you will soon. A lot of important, interesting, and just plain weird, things happened in the books. So why don't we take a peek and see them all through Neville's eyes? Rated for caution
1. The Dragon and the Knight

Longbottom's Long Tale

By Mushroom Cap

Disclaimer: I do not own anything recognizable in any of the stories I post on this site. They belong to J.K. Rowling. I do, however, own Crabbe's wicked right hook.

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"_You know how I think they chose people for the Gryffindor team?" said Malfoy loudly a few minutes later. "It's people they feel sorry for. See, there's Potter, who's got no parents, then there's the Weasleys, who've got not money-you should be on the team, Longbottom, you've got no brains" _

_-Draco Malfoy __Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone__ pg 223_

Neville felt his face turn as scarlet as the Hogwarts Express at the comment. Was it sad that he was actually pleased that someone said he should be on the Gryffindor team, even if it was an insult? Probably.

What was it Harry had said to him earlier? After Hermione had taken Malfoy's leg-locker curse off of him? It had boosted what little confidence he had, and if Harry meant it…well, Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, so it was worth double coming from him.

Right…he, Neville Glanmore Longbottom, needed to stand up for himself. He nodded and turned in his seat to face Malfoy.

_I'm really going to let him have it; this is it, no more being a pushover._

He felt rather like a knight riding off to face a dragon, as he met Malfoy's eyes. Malfoy looked back at him with a smirk, one silvery blonde eyebrow arched upwards. Neville could already feel his resolve crumbling down around him. Quickly, before it completely fell into ruin, he squared his shoulders and leapt, or, rather, tumbled into battle (metaphorically of course).

"I'm worth…twelve of you, Malfoy!" The knight made a valiant effort, and the dragon roared with laughter.

"You tell him, Neville." His brother-in-arms cheered him on, though his eyes where on the quidditch match in front of them.

"Longbottom, if brains were gold you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's saying something."

Aaaand the dragon flattened the knight with a single dismissive swipe of its claw, leaving the princess, or in this case, Neville's dignity, at its mercy.

Neville's eyes prickled. No, he was _**not**_ going to cry, he wouldn't give Malfoy the satisfaction.

The dragon had grown bored of Neville, and turned its eyes to Ron, who, being made, obviously, of much sterner stuff then Neville, charged forward to meet him. Literally. Ron had leapt onto Malfoy, punching and hitting every bit of the blonde Slytherin he could get to.

The flattened knight struggled to his feet and watched the battle for several moments while internally debating. Then, his decision made, he dove in to help.

Crabbe had wrapped his sausage like fingers around Ron's neck and was trying to choke him, so Neville punched Crabbe's trollish face as hard as he could to try and get him off of Ron. Crabbe blinked and released Ron's neck as Neville inwardly cheered. His inner celebration was cut short with the sickening realization that Crabbe was looking at him murderously. He barely had time to gulp before Crabbe dove at him, his massive fists clenched.

Neville yelped and rolled sideways under a seat as Crabbe landed where Neville had been on the floor with a loud "Thump!" and slid forward.

"I'll get him!" grunted Goyle, and he leapt off his seat in the row behind them and….banged his head against the bench Neville was hiding beneath. Goyle jerked to his feet and howled in pain, pressing his hands against the forming bump on his forehead.

Neville seized his chance and darted forward, scuttling between Goyle's legs, his eyes on the stairs leading down from the stand.

Alas, it was not to be. He felt a hand seize his ankle and drag him back into the fray.

Neville tried to grab at the floor to keep himself from being pulled backwards, practically clawing the wood in desperation.

Another hand grabbed his hair and yanked his head up painfully before slamming it down onto the floor. He would've been badly hurt had he not yanked his arms towards him and tucked them under his head just in time to cushion the blow.

He arched his back and grabbed at the hand gripping his hair, digging his nails into the skin.

Goyle yelped and fell backwards and right on top of Neville's lower back, his legs on either side of him.

Neville grimaced, it felt like an elephant was sitting on him, not an eleven year old boy. He kicked his legs desperately and heard the satisfying sound of his trainer acquainting itself with Crabbe's face. The boy yelped and let go of Neville's ankle. Neville twisted about, practically rolling side to side to get Goyle off of him, but the boy was too heavy. He was going to be crushed if he didn't do something!

He dug his nails even deeper into Goyle's wrist, scraping at it, and the boy grunted in pain, yanking his hand back. Neville lunged forward and twisted around, intending to kick Goyle in the face but, once again, Crabbe, whose nose was bleeding from Neville kicking him, grabbed his ankle and dragged him back, yelping and throwing up an arm to block the attack launched by Neville's free leg.

Goyle loomed over him, practically growling. Neville caught sight of a meaty fist careening towards him, heard a sickening crunch, and everything went black.

……………

He's woken up two hours later in the hospital wing, Madame Pomfrey looming over him with a bottle containing a noxious looking liquid inside.

"Good, you're awake." She said briskly, then, more kindly, she asked, "How do you feel?"

Neville looked up at her and the memory of what had landed him in the hospital wing came flowing back. He grinned broadly, ignoring the pain that caused to his obviously broken nose.

"I feel…fantastic!" he said, and then the brave knight promptly passed out.

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There we go, the first of many one-shots of Neville's POV of certain events in Harry Potter.

Forgive me, but I hope I will receive more reviews for this project then my others…Really, over 100 hits on my "I Believe In Harvey Dent" story and only 3 reviews, and "Becoming Himself"? Over 50 hits and only 2 reviews, and those were from two of the quads that I met at Hollins Summer camp so they were basically obligated to review…

Well, I suppose I should be grateful that I got any reviews at all. Before I started actually posting stories I rarely reviewed unless it was a really good story but now I realize how wonderful reviews are. The feeling you get when you log onto your email and find a little alert waiting for you…indescribable.

Just for fun…did anyone notice that I gave Neville a middle name? J.K. Rowling never mentioned his middle name anywhere in the books or in an interview so I gave him one…I wonder if anyone can guess at the meaning? I feel very clever for this, much like JKR must feel about all the secret meanings in her books.

I'd like people to guess, and I suppose, if no one gets it right, I will tell you in the next 'chapter'.

Oh, two more things! The 'chapters' (I am not quite sure what to call them) will be in no particular order. I could do a one-shot from the first book and then the next chapter could be from the 3rd, and then the 6th, and then back to the 2nd.

Last things, I am apologizing in advance for any incorrect grammar or spellings. If you have read my profile you will know that I moved to America from Germany when I was eight and I was already bad at grammar in my native tongue so…you can see how it will be not better in English. I know I should ask for a Beta but…it is a matter of pride! 


	2. Unforgivable

I'm trying desperately to get this finished before I go to the Art museum with my Mutter in….20 minutes!

Disclaimer: Don't own anything except Neville's POV, I think….

"_So…do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"_

_-Barty Crouch masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody, __Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire__ page 212_

He knew one. Actually, he knew of several, but one in particular occupied his mind. It was a vile spell, a spell that never should have been invented, a spell that took his parents from him. Instead of a loving mum and dad, he had two empty shells that lived a pathetic semblance of a life that consisted of droobles gum, four plain walls, a bed, and a plethora of potions that were completely useless.

All of that was because of a single spell, a six-letter incantation that had, long ago, been screeched by three mad people over and over again until the people occupying the bodies of Frank and Alice Longbottom were gone. That one curse had stolen from him a family that he had been too young to remember

He raised his hand to everyone's surprise, even his own. He desperately wished he hadn't, fearing right away that people would laugh at him. It was silly, there was, at this particular moment that is, no reason for anyone to laugh at him, but he was still afraid they would.

It was too late for him to put his arm down; the paranoid and possibly mad auror had spotted him.

"Yes?" he asked, his electric blue eye rolling in its socket to stare at him, sending a silent shiver down his spine.

"There's one---The Cruciatus Curse." He said slowly, his voice quiet from shyness and yet he still felt as if he had accomplished something.

The eye was still fixed on Neville; he felt as if it was looking right past his skin, muscles, and bone, and right into his inner being.

"Your name's Longbottom?" the auror asked.

_He knows…of course he knows, all the aurors know what happened…_

It was a given that Moody knew all about his parents but the thought still closed up his throat so he could only nod weakly in response. Moody made no reply, instead he turned and retrieved a spider from the jar.

"The Cruciatus Curse…needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea." Moody said, pointing his wand at the spider and enlarging it.

Neville stared. Get the idea of what? What was Moody going to do? He blinked.

_Surely…no, he couldn't be…but he had already demonstrated the imperius…No, he wasn't possibly going to-_

"Crucio!"

Like shadows of a fragmented dream half-forgotten, Neville heard another voice say the forbidden words; a voice that was filled with a kind of flee that signaled the beginning of insanity in the speaker. Another voice, deeper and filled with disgust echoed the words. A third voice rung in his head after the second, younger then the other two, and drenched in anxious, breathless wonder. It was the voice of someone caught up in circumstances that they weren't quite comfortable with.

Neville clenched the desk, digging his nails into the old wood. The pads of his fingers feeling the bumps and indents of carved graffiti from students that had come before him.

He should look away, he shouldn't be watching this…this _**abomination**_ of magic; but he didn't. His wide brown eyes couldn't look anywhere but at the demonstration, the only thing that existed for him at that moment was the tortured spider.

It's legs twitched and it's body spasmed maniacally, as if the poor creature was attempting to flee the pain, escape the agony by escaping it's own body. It rolled desperately across the table.

When-ever Great Uncle Algie lit at fire, he would insist on doing it the muggle way.

"It's a manly thing," he would say, arranging the logs in the fireplace (logs that had been chopped with magic, so it really wasn't a very good display of masculinity).

Then he would have Neville crumple up old copies of 'The Daily Prophet' and 'Witch Weekly' (which no one read and was subscribed too for the singular purpose of letting Great Uncle Algie take sadistic pleasure in destroying the 'worthless trash of words')

Neville would be allowed to strike a match and light the paper.

(Great-Uncle Algie probably let him do this because was hoping he would catch on fire and then put it out while remarkably unscathed due to magical ability, magical ability that didn't surface until he was eight. Great-Uncle Algie stopped letting him do this after he bounced out the window, which really proved Neville's suspicions).

Once on fire, the paper would twist, writhe, twitch, and even move as the flames burned and destroyed it.

That was how the spider moved, as if it was on fire.

Unbidden, a horribly sick and twisted thought waltzed into his mind: had his parents looked like this?

Had the handsome face of his father mutated into a monstrous visage of agony? Had his mother's limbs twitched and flailed like a macabre puppet with demons pulling the strings? Had they screamed?

Yes, they must have screamed and screamed and screamed in pain, screamed their pleas for mercy and salvation at the hands of their torturers.

The pleading had to have come later, much later.

His parents were, no, _had_ been too strong, too brave, to beg until their minds had started to slip away.

The monsters had not relented…had ignored their cries and willingly, _happily_, continued.

Absolutely delighted, were they, to steal the sanity of Frank and Alice Longbottom, to make their son, for all purposes, an orphan.

They'd enjoyed it…they'd basked in their screams, watched their writing bodies with joy! The monsters!

They'd burned his life to the ground and laughed, dancing in the flames, their hearts as black as the charred remnants.

He could not look away, transfixed by the demonic magic, the knowledge that _this,_ this was what his parents had endured at the hands of those demons who loved to torture, to maim! Parent-stealers! Orphan-makers!

"Stop it!" a shrill voice broke the chain linking Neville's mind to the darkness.

Moody stopped the spell and the spider seemed to deflate and lay there on the desk, completely exhausted as it's legs twitched out the last little jolts of pain.

Neville didn't see the spider; in its place was his father, eyes wide and blank, his face a portrait of madness. Then the spider became his mother, her eyes bulging and her mouth open in a silent scream.

He closed his eyes and blocked out the classroom, blocked out the curses, the spiders, and the imaginary bodies of his mother and father.

Distantly, somewhere far away from him, he heard the bell ring. Without even having to think about it he leapt from his seat and darted out the door with the mass of students, pushing past them to run down the hall. He was desperate to put as much space between him and that classroom as he could.

He didn't get far. He came to a stop halfway down the corridor, right in front of a stained glass window that portrayed a monk. The monk was looking up at the sky, as if trying to express his devotion to a god that Neville doubted was even listening.

It was raining outside, and the rain hit the glass and trickled over the glass eyes of the monk and down his cold and flat cheeks. He looked like he was crying the tears that Neville didn't dare let loose for fear of being called a wimp.

It was funny, in a twisted way, that the son of the courageous aurors, Frank and Alice Longbottom, who had been part of a secret resistance against He-who-must-not-be-names, who had, according to his gran, three times defied and escaped the Dark Lord, would have a son whose greatest fear was being teased (that and thunder storms, Professor Snape, crocodiles, heights, renegade death eaters, werewolves, vampires, lethifolds, manticores, pixies thanks to Lockhart, giant snakes, the bloody baron, Filch, pointy objects, black-pool pier, his Gram, boggarts…a lot of things really).

Once again, Neville Longbottom found himself doubting that he was brave enough to be in Gryffindor.

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Oooooh, four reviews!!!! Haha…I guess asking for people to review really does work. Now I wrote this last night around 12ish and, at the time, I thought it was really good; but now, reading over it, I don't think it's dark enough…I wanted it to be very intense, I wanted Neville's thoughts to become more and more extreme and wild and for the readers to be able to feel the complete and total anger and hatred he feels for Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Barty Crouch jr. right before Hermione makes Moody stop the demonstration. I do not know if I got it…

Anyway, I have a whole three-page list of different events I want to write from Neville's perspective so…expect many chapters. I AM ALSO OPEN TO IDEAS ON EVENTS PEOPLE WOULD LIKE TO SEE WRITTEN I wrote that in caps because people don't read these things…I know this because no one guessed at what Neville's middle name meant. Only Mackenzie guessed and that's because I forced her to, and we did that through text messages and not reviews. Sorry Mack, I can't remember which account is yours and which are Mere, Steph, and Jess's!

So here it is you unobservant…people who review and …don't guess. If you haven't read the seventh book, this is a spoiler, and you should leave, and you should know that you fail for having not read the book. Yes, I went there, go fail in a corner! Oh, and read the book!

Glanmore was what I made Neville's middle name by. It is taken from the name of a wizard called

Glanmore Peakes- (1677-1761) who was famous for slaying the sea serpent of Cromer.

I figured it was sort've clever to do this since Neville totally sliced and diced Nagini in the seventh book.

Okay, so, next chapter is going to be up in three days, and it will be a lot less dark. See you then! Don't forget to review!


	3. Peskipiski Pesternomi!

Disclaimer: Do not own

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_"Right then," Lockhart said loudly. "Let's see what you make of them!" and he opened the cage._

_-Gilderoy Lockhart, __Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets__ page 79._

They shot out of the cage like little jets, mere blurs of electric blue as they took off in every direction. Neville attempted to copy some of his classmates who had dived under the desks but, just as he pushed his seat aside so he could slide under the wooden table, he felt sharp little claws dig into the tips of both of his ears. He screamed and tried to bat them away frantically.

"Let go! Let go!" he yelled. They rose up in the air, blue transparent wings flapping. If he had not been so terrified he probably would have marveled at their ability to lift someone several times their size.

"You is wanting us to lets you go?" hissed a high-pitched voice in his left ear. It sounded like a budgy and a house-elf combined, only more obnoxious and evil. Neville blinked, pixies weren't supposed to be able to speak...well, human! ...Were they? He'd never heard of such a thing but...well, this was Hogwarts, and stranger things had happened here before, for instance...he was currently being assaulted by pixies.

The sound of cackling echoed in his right ear, and all the while they carried him higher.

He swallowed and, taking a shuddering breath, dared a glimpse at the ground. He felt woozy when he saw that he was at least fifteen feet in the air.

"I think he is wanting us to drops him," said the cackling voice with glee.

"No! No...Don't let go!" Neville yelped, his breath becoming shorter and his heartbeat faster.

"'Let go' is says...then, 'Don't let go' it says...whats shall we do with it, Schnizzle?" the first pixie muttered.

"Please," Neville whimpered. "Don't drop me!"

"Oh dear, Kipsky, we has better not drop the fat thing, as it says 'please'." giggled the pixie known as 'schnizzle'.

Neville huffed at that remark, quite forgetting his current predicament for a moment. He wasn't fat...just a little chubby, and that was mostly baby fat! Besides, was it his fault that Hogwarts didn't really advocate an athletic program? It was true; if you weren't on the house quidditch team then you were basically on your own.

"He wants us to let go...but not to drop him," clarified Kipsky.

"I has an idea," said Schnizzle in a sing-song voice. They both giggled wickedly and Neville felt his stomach churn as they jerked him, flying up and backwards.

"What a pretty chandelier…" said Kipsky. Through the corner of his eye, Neville could see the horrid thing reach out a clawed hand and stroke a glistening glass crystal adoringly. He hissed and recoiled suddenly.

"Stupid Kipsky, it is iron!" giggled Schnizzle. Kipsky shook his injured hand and made a chirping sound.

"Lets just get rid of the fat child," he muttered, no longer interested in having fun with Neville.

"Righsies, up you go, fat child!" Crowed Schnizzle and, with a feat of strength that no one would have though two eight-inch pixies capable of, they heaved him up and, by the back of his robes, hung him from the iron chandelier. "He makes a pretty ornament, he does!" giggled Schnizzle.

"What are you doing?! You can't put me here!" Neville cried, his eyes wide in panic. He started kicking his legs to try and hit one of the wicked little things, but he only succeeded in making the chandelier swing back and forth. The chandelier was large and its body was mostly an iron ring with candles on top and little dew shaped glass crystals hanging from the bottom, Neville's movement caused the little crystals to hit against each other, producing an almost musical sound that, unfortunately, Neville was in no condition to appreciate.

Kipsky flew upwards until he was level with Neville's face. The pixie leaned forward, his claws on his hips, and scrutinized Neville.

"Please! Get me down from here! I haven't done anything to you!" Neville pleaded, having swallowed what little pride he had in order to beg a pixie.

Kipsky blinked and moved in even closer, so that he could rest his clawed hands on Neville's nose.

Suddenly, Kipsky grimaced and stuck his tongue out at Neville, blowing a loud raspberry. Then he squeezed Neville's nose twice in a row.

"Honk, honk!" the pixie squeaked, and then made a face at him. "Stop swinging overly large one, you'll break the chandelier and you will fall doooowwwnnnnn and down some more…and then you'll land with a big 'Squish!'" Said Kipsky, making arm movements to demonstrate the various actions that he had just mentioned.

Neville swallowed and stopped his struggling at once for, as soon as the pixie had finished, the chandelier had made a very ominous creaking sound.

Kipsky laughed and then darted back down to the floor, where he at once set to work yanking on Lavender Brown's braid, laughing as he dodged the text book she was trying to bean him with.

"You can't just leave me up here! You can't!" shouted Neville at Kipsky, who made a rude hand gesture.

In distress, Neville turned his head in search of Schnizzle who seemed a bit nicer then Kipsky, though still rather nasty,

He let out a sob of despair when he saw Schnizzle happily riding on the back of a toad. He stopped. A …toad?

He peered downwards and, sure enough,

"Hey! Leave Trevor alone! Get off of him!" he shouted, resuming his struggling as his poor familiar was forced to hop with the pixie on his back, kicking him to make him go faster, all the while shouting,

"Giddy-up!"

Schnizzle, of course, ignored him. Searching around for a rescuer, Neville's eyes alighted on the professor.

"Professor Lockhart! " he shouted, waving his arms wildly to get the attention of the 3 time winner of 'Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award,'.

The man peeked up from behind his desk and squinted up at Neville. "Please! Get me down from here!" Neville beseeched him as the chandelier made another creaking sound. It was old and, after being accustomed to the weight of only its candles and crystals for several centuries, the shock of having Neville's weight dropped on it was causing quite a strain. Not that Neville was fat or anything…it was baby fat, of course, nothing wrong with that…

Anyways, Neville wanted down before the chandelier decided to end it's career, he'd rather not test his luck and see if he was going to start bouncing again.

Professor Lockhart gazed helplessly up at him.

"Please! It's going to fall!" Neville cried. The Professor bit his lip and then smiled.

"I can help with that!" he cried, whipping out his wand. Aiming it at the chandelier he cried, "Reparo!".

Neville had really been looking for something more along the lines of a…well, a rescue; but at least the chandelier wasn't creaking anymore!

"No need to thank me, Linbarrow!" Lockhart said proudly.

"It's Longbottom, sir!" corrected Neville, shouting so the man standing twenty feet below him could hear him. Lockhart shrugged.

"Whatever," he said, and then bounded to the center of the room. Fixing the chandelier seemed to have given him some confidence, even though it really shouldn't have. He rolled the sleeved of his robes back and brandished his wand with aplomb. "I'll handle this! Remain calm!" he announced. He cleared his throat and made a very impressive show of waving his wand while simultaneously shouting, "PeskiPiskie Pesternomi!"

Relief soared through Neville, the pixies would be stopped and he would be returned to the ground, where he belonged.

But nothing happened. Everyone had stopped to look at Lockhart as he preformed the spell, everyone including the pixies. There was a moment's pause in which each individual pixie took a few seconds to look themselves over and see if anything was amiss. It soon became obvious that the spell, if you could call it that, had failed.

With a wild 'Whoop!' one of the pixies flew down at Lockhart, cackling, his clawed hands outstretched and twitching. Lockhart shrieked and immediately covered his precious golden hair with his hands. The pixie bypassed Lockhart's sun kissed locks and went for his ill-protected wand instead.

Neville gasped and started struggling even more violently, as if by rocking the chandelier he could prevent the pixie from taking the wand.

It really didn't matter, after all, since the chandelier was no longer in any danger of falling down. After all, Lockhart was an accomplished wizard, so his reparo spell would hold pretty well.

Neville was forced to rethink this opinion several seconds later when, shrieking and carrying on like a little girl, Lockhart jumped up and down waving his arms as the pixie flew off with his wand. Not two seconds later Neville heard a loud 'Crack!' and the bottom of his stomach plummeted as the ground rushed up to meet him.

It was the incident with the window all over again; well, he'd

made it last time so maybe he would live through this as well.

He heard the shriek of the pixie as both the chandelier and Neville came down upon it.

It hit the ground with a clattering sound that seemed to shake the floor of the classroom. Strangely enough, Neville found himself only a little shaken, but otherwise unharmed. He hadn't bounced this time around, but something had cushioned his blow, and it wasn't the pixie.

"Right then!" he heard Lockhart shout, the teacher bending low to pry his wand from the fingers of the concussed pixie. He said something else but it went unheard by Neville has a huge mob, made up of most of the class, surged towards the door, sweeping Neville up and pushing him along with them.

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Right, so. Today is my birthday!!! Yay for me…

I went to see the movie, "Inglorious Basterds" today with some friends. Most of the movie was in French, but some was in German, which made me very happy.

But I had a fight with mein mutter and so the ending of this chapter probably is very bad because I am very distracted and I did not feel like writing but I did promise to post today.

My grandparents are very sick, and mein family and I are going back to Germany to be with them. We'll be back on September 3rd, provided they don't get worse. So I probably will not be posting until then.


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